war, pestilence, and famine.
It is a check for the operation of which Mr Malthus has allowed.

That any condensation which does not affect the general health will
affect fecundity, is not only not proved--it is disproved--by Mr
Sadler's own tables.

Mr Sadler passes on to Prussia, and sums up his information respecting
that country as follows:--

(In the following table numbers appear in the order: Inhabitants on a
Square Mile, German.

Number of Provinces.
Births to 100 Marriages, 1754.
Births to 100 Marriages, 1784.
Births to 100 Marriages, Busching.)

Under 1000 : 2 : 434 : 472 : 503
1000 to 2000 : 4 : 414 : 455 : 454
2000 to 3000 : 6 : 384 : 424 : 426
3000 to 4000 : 2 : 365 : 408 : 394

After the table comes the boast as usual:

"Thus is the law of population deduced from the registers of Prussia
also: and were the argument to pause here, it is conclusive. The
results obtained from the registers of this and the preceding countries,
exhibiting, as they do most clearly, the principle of human increase,
it is utterly impossible should have been the work of chance; on the
contrary, the regularity with which the facts class themselves in
conformity with that principle, and the striking analogy which the whole
of them bear to each other, demonstrate equally the design of Nature,
and the certainty of its accomplishment."

We are sorry to disturb Mr Sadler's complacency. But, in our opinion,
this table completely disproves his whole principle. If we read the
columns perpendicularly, indeed, they seem to be in his favour. But how
stands the case if we read horizontally? Does Mr Sadler believe that,
during the thirty years which elapsed between 1754 and 1784, the
population of Prussia had been diminishing? No fact in history is better
ascertained than that, during the long peace which followed the seven
years' war, it increased with great rapidity. Indeed, if the fecundity
were what Mr Sadler states it to have been, it must have increased with
great rapidity. Yet, the ratio of births to marriages is greater in 1784
than in 1754, and that in every province. It is, therefore, perfectly
clear that the fecundity does not diminish whenever the density of the
population increases.

We will try another of Mr Sadler's tables:

TABLE LXXXI.

Showing the Estimated Prolificness of Marriages in England at the close
of the Seventeenth Century.

(In the following table the nam